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Topic: Why I run Windows (Read 6917 times)

Since Windows 8 was released, I've been buying laptop PCs for our company through Toshiba Direct and pay a little extra to "downgrade" to Windows 7 Pro. We've had really good results.

I've had to do this at every company I've worked for because most PLC programming software packages lag behind on supporting new Windows builds.

Its actually a nice situation: I always know what to expect. I happily work on XP as people complain about Vista. I'm moving right along on 7 while hearing the pitfalls of 8.

Meanwhile, I haven't had to replace my personal laptop since graduating college, so the ol' girl back home is chugging along with Vista. She's still fighting the good fight, but I've got all my beer recipes and notes on Google Drive, just in case...

It's crazy how well-made they are compared to other laptops. I just retired my MacBook Pro from 2005. The only problem with the old one is that the battery is totally dead, which never bothered me because a 17" isn't really a portable anyway. I can put a new battery in it and sell it on eBay for about 1/3 the price of a brand-new 13".

I also just realized the new models have no moving parts, which is just awesome.

I had a Thinkpad that was rock solid for years. IBM/Lenovo/whatever even replaced the motherboard for me for free, out of warranty. I put the service request in Monday night, got the return shipping box Tuesday morning, and got the repaired computer back Thursday evening. Unbelievable customer service. I don't use it much anymore, but it still runs fine. I think it's a 2006 model, IIRC.

I just realized, it's not Windows I hate. It's non mac computers in general. My laptop died yesterday. I hated that thing, but I needed it too. Now I'm screwed. Computer guy said the hard drive won't spin up. I will never buy an HP again. Screw you HP!

You're blaming the hard drive failure on it being non-mac, but with consolidation in hard drive manufacturers there's only a few making them for everyone, and quality in general seems to have gone down. I've had Western Digital drives fail on me in days and some last over a decade. Now I automatically back up everything (I use carbonite) and can restore on a new drive no problem - I did it a while back when I got a new computer, it just copied everything straight on to the new machine. I highly recommend some solution like that.